Ephemeral As Love
by Shiroi Hoshi
Summary: Ideal art is immortal, it is what Sasori believes in. But art; real art, it is a wispy cloud of passing rain. It moves fast, almost as if it has never been there. Real art; it is as ephemeral as love and life— and that is what Deidara will always believe in. Two different worlds collide as Sasori and Deidara meet. Is love worth changing your beliefs? SASODEI ONESHOT.


**TADA. SasoDei- My favourite pairing (: I've always sort of wanted to write SasoDei, but then... I was so afraid I'd ruin it for me, and for you guys. Because. I don't ever want to ruin SasoDei T.T I always felt like they had a complicated bond. :D This is my first time writing this pairing, and also, my first time using the 2nd Person POV, and ALSO, my first time writing a story in present tense. If i screw up anywhere, please tell me. :D There ya go!**

* * *

It starts with the question your kindergarten teacher posed during English class.

"What is art?" She asks.

What is art? Your mind reels with all the possible answers you can give, but even then, you know what art really is.

You raise your hand, but someone else beats you to it. Annoyed, you turn to whoever it is that has stolen your spotlight.

It is the puny little brat with long yellow hair who sits right at the front every single day. Briefly, you regret choosing a seat right at the back. No wonder the teacher doesn't see you first.

Reluctantly, you put your hand down to hear what the Chosen One has to say.

"Yes?" the teacher prompts.

"Art is a blast, un," the boy exclaims excitedly, waving his stubbly arms around, imitating an explosion. "It's when you blow up stuff, and it goes 'boom' real loudly."

The teacher blinks in mild surprise, and smiles. "How creative, Deidara-kun."

Well, you don't think so. Your hand snaps into the air, and you give a wild wave. You want to be noticed. You need to make a very important change in that boy Deidara's answer.

Finally, the teacher spots you. She nods at you and you heave a sigh of relief. "Sasori-kun?"

"Art is not a 'boom', miss," you say, and that boy Deidara shoots you a glare, his blue eyes flashing.

"Then what do you think art is?" Your teacher is genuinely interested, and so are your other little classmates. They are craning their necks, turning to the back to hear what you have to say.

"Art is something that never dies," you say. It is something that lives forever. "It is..." you struggle to remember the term your grandmother used when she told you about art. "Immortality," you are confident as you throw a smirk at Deidara. "Art is immortality."

There is a chorus of whispers as the class starts to ask what "immortality" means. You feel a sense of pride for knowing something that they don't. You steal a glance at Deidara, expecting puzzlement to cloud his face, but you are met with undisguised fury.

"Something that is immortal could never burn to nothingness," Deidara says, his tone low and threatening, his words very unlike someone his age. "Something that is immortal could never be art."

You are stunned by his stubbornness on the subject. "Why not? Something that goes 'boom' won't last for long enough. What is there to see, then?"

"That is why you will never forget it. Something that is forever," Deidara's eyes glaze over with something resembling a memory. "You will keep looking at it, and you will get bored of it. And then, it's not beautiful anymore. It becomes normal, un. It's not art anymore."

"Something that cannot be treasured and kept, something that lasts for two seconds, what art is there in that?" You don't want to lose this argument. You decide that this boy Deidara is an obstacle you want to overcome.

"Then you just have to treasure those two seconds," Deidara snaps.

"What an idiot," you mutter under your breath.

Deidara jumps out of his seat so quickly that you are startled. "What do _you _know about art?" he is shouting.

You realize that he is shouting at you. What is wrong with him? What does _he _know about art, then? Who is he to decide that you don't know art? You know it better than he does. And you are sure. You are angry. Angry—that this little nobody is judging you.

"You shouldn't even be _talking _about art, un! You don't know enough!"

"I can talk about it as much as you can!" You are shouting, too.

Your teacher looks exasperated. "All right, Sasori-kun. Stop it, you two. Art is whatever you want it to be. Now, be good boys and sit back down."

You don't want Granny to be called down to school, so you sit down, and so does Deidara. But he doesn't stop glaring at you.

On impulse, you stick your tongue out at him. He blinks, and makes a face at you.

And you think to yourself, "I don't like him."

As if he is reading your mind, Deidara narrows his eyes at you. "I hate you, Sasori!" He yells at you, pure dislike gleaming in his fierce blue orbs. "I really _hate _you, un!"

You are rendered speechless and he turns back to the front, triumphant.

Finally, you process the words he has shouted at you. And right there, in the middle of the class, with the teacher talking about adding numbers, you throw your eraser at his perfect blonde hair.

It bounces off the top of his head and he rubs the spot tenderly.

"Sasori-kun!" your teacher says disapprovingly, but you don't care.

You roll your eyes and turn back to Deidara. If looks could kill, you would have been buried. The brat rummages through his bag, and you watch, satisfied, until he grabs something resembling a balloon and hurls it at you.

It hits you in the face, and it explodes. You are sopping wet. Water mats your rusty red hair to the top of your head, and drips off of it to your face, drenching your uniform shirt.

"That," Deidara grins at you, "is art, un."

Infuriated, you grab one of your stationeries and march to the front of the classroom, leaving a trail of water in your wake.

You tug the cover off your permanent marker and scribble all over Deidara's notebook.

"I hate you too," you say loudly, while he tries to push you and your meddlesome marker away from him.

In that moment, you unconsciously notice how pretty his hair is, like a field of daffodils. And his eyes— they were an unnamed blue— deeper than the ocean, but yet lighter than the sky.

* * *

There is only one high school in your town. So you are not surprised during the first day of freshman year, to find that you recognize the sunny longhaired blonde in your class during registration.

Absentmindedly, you notice that he is now tall— almost as tall as you. You think back around ten years to the irritating brat called Deidara. You put two and two together.

You are contemplating if you should say hi. Your fists clench and unclench.

And then, the boy sitting right at the front— the root of your frustration— turns around. His startling sapphire eyes roam over every student until they settle on someone sitting right at the back— that someone is you.

You sit, frozen, unsure if you should wave, to be polite. Then a stray thought drifts through your mind. What if he doesn't remember you? You would look like an idiot. In your indecisiveness your face resembles a frown. Then the blonde smiles and waves at you.

You feel a small burst of delight— the brat remembers you.

Hesitantly, you wave back.

Deidara gets up and makes his way to you. "Hey," he says. His voice is low and soothing, and you realize that you like it.

"Hey," you reply.

"Remember me?" he sounds a little panicky. "It's me, Deidara?"

"I remember," you smirk at him. "How could I forget the one who threw a water bomb at me in class?"

Deidara laughs at the memory. "I remember you didn't agree with me on art."

"Art is immortality," you say automatically, and curse yourself. What if that childish rivalry starts all over again? It's hard having an enemy.

"Art is a blast, un," he whacks your head in a strangely familiar manner before he saunters away. "Don't make me throw another water bomb at you."

You are stunned, the remnants of his touch still lingering on your scalp. What is wrong with you? Then you look down at your uniform shirt. Maybe you won't provoke him after all.

"Huh," you say to yourself.

You see him again in art class. Well, of _course _he'd be taking art. His halo of blonde locks is messy as he rushes into the classroom.

He is late.

You are never late. You hate to wait, and you hate making others wait even more. The brat— no, the _angelic _being, and you are surprised by how your thoughts have warped, now apologizes profusely to a less-than-pleased Medusa about not being punctual for the umpteenth time that month. You smile a little at how adorable you think he looks then, before you catch your thoughts and rein them in.

You are doing your task— abstract painting, when you hear someone slide into the seat in front of a blank canvas beside you. You are startled that the sunny golden boy has decided to sink into the shadows of the class with you by sitting right at the back.

You are flattered, but you don't show it. You flick him a nonchalant glance even though your heart is swelling with happiness.

You don't speak, and neither does he. You paint carefully, taking great pains not to mess up a single stroke, not to blend the wrong colors.

When you are done, you sneak a peak at your partner's work. You are thrown back, potentially blinded, by the loud, screaming colors splattered over Deidara's canvas in bold yellow lines, thick red splatters and blue spirals.

You turn back to your lusterless mess of thin maroon squiggles, feeble black circles and grey dots, and you think that it looks like a piece of junk compared to his sun-kissed, God-blessed masterpiece.

You feel a clap on your shoulder, and you look up to see Deidara standing behind you, resting his chin on your head. You shiver at the contact. Does this ethereal beauty not realize the effect that his closeness is having on you, or is he doing it on purpose?

"You paint like you're feeling very sad, un." His voice is soft, a whispery caress by your ear.

You are still. You are thinking of your Granny and how she has died two months ago. How Granny had been your art. How you had wanted her to be forever, just like how art is meant to be. But she is gone. She is never coming back. Granny— the most brilliant piece of art— was as fleeting as a blink of an eye. Here one time and gone the next, leaving you surely and utterly alone. And with a bitter connection, you think of how Deidara may have been right about art being a "blast". How it only lasts for two seconds.

"Sasori?" Deidara is saying. "Are you all right, un?"

With a twinge of shame, you realize that a tear has slipped from the crevice of your eye, the treacherous drop leaking silently down the side of your face.

You start to say that you are fine, but the proximity between you and him robs you of your words. He is so near that you can breathe in the scent of honeysuckle and wintry mint from between his lips. Without knowing it, you lean in closer, and closer.

You make the mistake of glancing up. Your mud red eyes clash with the electric blue gaze, so full of trust and concern, gracing you with his attention, all of it.

Your self-control frays and you dip in, pressing your lips softly against his, enjoying the brief moment of warmth and the taste of sweetest syrup.

It is a moment as evanescent, and as short-lived as a "blast", before you pull away, horror creeping into your chest. What have you done? How can you, how can _you_, fall for him? Fall for a _boy_; fall for _this _boy, who was once an enemy?

Shock is evident in those transparent summer sky blue eyes, but you don't miss the haze of smoke that passes over his dazed face as he stares, and he stares, at you. At your _lips_.

You are tempted to steal yourself another kiss, but the bell signaling the end of class rings. The sound is deafening, clanging and resonates throughout the scattered students in the classroom. Deidara lets out a long sigh and you tremble a little as his breath fans over your face.

Now it feels like eternity, like forever, while he gazes at you, his look never wavering. You pick up on the internal battle raging in his inferno blue depths, and then, in a matter of two seconds that you can barely count, you feel his mouth on yours and you sit, stunned as Deidara grabs his stuff and bolts from the room.

You touch your fingers to your lips, feeling a smile curve behind your hand. You don't care if he is a boy, if _you _are a boy, or if he was a past enemy. You like him, and he seems to like you too.

So begins the high school life of stolen kisses and after school dates. But it never goes further than that.

The honey-butter haired blonde haunts your every dream and nightmare. He is everywhere you go. You see his blue eyes in the sky, his pale pink lips at the back of your pencils and his golden locks in your omelets.

You are drawn to this unearthly brilliance so strongly you are addicted to his smile and laugh. His presence is your drug, and you can never get enough. And when you finally realize that you are helplessly, definitely, _irrevocably _in love with this terrifyingly perfect fragment of sunshine, it is too late to turn back; no amount of warnings can help you now.

You will never forget the burst of happiness in your chest when you asked him to be yours during the start of senior year. Your hands are clammy, your eyes nervous. You stand in front of him, towering half a head over him as he blinks up at you. You feel all fluttery inside and you keep swallowing. "Be mine," you say, almost pleadingly. You can't stand knowing his answer, suddenly afraid.

And then his melodic voice reaches your ears. "Yes," he says, softly. He reaches up to put those familiar arms around you neck, and you instinctively wrap your arms around his lean waist, letting his warmth seep into you. "Yes!" he declares more firmly, and colors burst from him, ricocheting all over the place.

You will _never _be happier.

* * *

Tears are falling now, as you stand over a gravestone. You are drowning; so deep in denial you can hardly breathe. The pressure of being so down under crushes you; like your heart.

Your heart; it is a shattered mess, blown into smithereens— powdered glass carried away by cold, lonely winds. It is a pain so indescribable that you cannot speak, riddling your entire being with cracks. And your loss. A loss so huge that almost all of you is ripped from your soul, leaving a gaping hole so empty that a hundred worlds cannot fill.

Your mind is stashed full of the past, refusing to open to the present, and rejecting any possibility of a future. You remember _him_. You remember how it feels— felt— to tangle your long fingers in your beloved's caramel blonde locks, how his electric sapphire blue eyes locked with your intense red gaze. You can still taste the sweetness of ripe apples and summer berries on his lips.

It is difficult. It is so _difficult_. Why? Why does this always happen to you? Why does nothing you care for last forever? You squeeze your eyes shut, and the tears spill. Tears of anguish, of fury, sorrow and of disbelief. They claw at your chest; they tear your whole essence apart.

Oh God, you think, oh God. Why, _why_.

You think back to those many, many years ago, to that question in English class that had started everything— both good and bad. You think back to the way his childish attitude had interested you. How he dared to throw a water bomb at you. How you had probably already loved him back then. How you were a besotted disaster.

Your knees are weaker than jelly. They tremble, buckle, and you sink down into the wet soil as the rain pelts down like needles, embedding into your skin.

He was right. He had always been right. Completely broken; you are a doll with flimsy joints, controlled by an unseen puppeteer.

You sob harder as you slowly understand— _He. Is. Gone_.

And he knew. Deidara knew, that he would be gone someday. Regret coursed through you because deep down, you know that too. You know— but you had chosen to ignore it.

Art. Art is forever?

Yes.

An ideal art is forever. It is immortal. Ideal art is what you believe in.

But art— _real_ art, it is a wispy cloud of passing rain. It moves fast, almost as if it has never been there. _Real _art; it is as ephemeral as love and life.

You reach out an arm to stroke the cold, slippery tomb in front of you, cracking a forced smile.

"Hey," you whisper almost inaudibly, thinking of lukewarm blue eyes and sunlit golden tresses. "I love you."

And in that moment, you know. You _know_, undoubtedly.

_Real_ art is a blast— _un_.

* * *

**A/N: Comments please.. I feel all emotional now. Writing in 2nd person POV is draining. I actually FEEL whatever Sasori is feeling. OMG. You guys should try it sometime. my heart beats so fast when im writing this. I cried a waterfall at the end. Ironic isn't it, seeing as I'm the writer... Anyway, _PLEASE REVIEW!_ *sobs***


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